Residential School Negialism does not deny the existence of the school system, but rather minimal, excuses or misrepresent made of the damage caused by him, experts say.
Earlier this month, BC Mla Dallas Brodie was expelled from Caucus from the conservative party after making a series of comments that question the experiences of indigenous people of residential schools.
In a publication about X, Brodie responded by saying that he was simply talking the truth. He told CBC News previously to refute the claims that he has been participating in residential school denialism.
However, experts, including the historian Sean Carleton, say that Brodie’s comments are part of the “predictable” and “rigorously discredited” arguments frequently used by the denaders of the residential schools.
“I think it is important to define what is not residential school denialism, which is the denial of the existence of the system or even that the system had some negative effects. We do not see much of that,” said Carleton, who is also an assistant professor of indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba.
Instead, he said, negialism is “a strategy to twist, minimize, misrepresent, minimize residential school truths in favor of more controversial opinions that the system was well intentional.”
He said that negialism in all forms, whether to talk about climate change or conspiracies of the flat earth, is “an attempt to shake public confidence in something we have consensus.”
Sow doubt
Behavior patterns, said Carleton, can help distinguish those who ask questions in good faith from those who try to sow doubts. In the case of Brodie, he said that there were multiple cases in which his comments could not address the complete reality of residential schools.
“If you call Brodie, for example, a denial, she will say: ‘But I’m not denying, this is the truth. The truth is that they have not yet found any body,” he said.
“But then, when you do the homework and look at the pattern of what he is doing … he is not saying: ‘Well, we know that 4,000 children have died in that system [with] 50 confirmed in Kamloops’ “.
Listen to experts about what it is and is not residential school, and why that matters.
Crystal Gail Fraser, who is Gwichyà Gwich’in and an associated professor in Native History and Studies at Alberta University, said he thinks of residential school denialism in terms of “small gray areas.”
Like Carleton, he thinks it is important to keep in mind that denialism is not about saying that residential schools never happened.
“[It’s about] To deny the experiences of the survivors, how they experienced their institutionalization as a child, but also the so -called intention of residential schools, “he said.
Fraser said that he sees denial when people suggest that the residential school system had good intentions, as well as when people question the reasons for survivors who share their stories.
She said the denial will still exist even after all the facts on residential schools are accepted.
“The ideology of Negialism will continue beyond residential schools because we still live in a socio -political context that justifies colonialism,” he said.
“To interrupt the rejection of indigenous knowledge, either on residential schools or something else, we will need some kind of radical transformation in society.”
Discredit survivors
Ry Moran, founding director of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation and Library of the Associated University – Reconciliation at the University of Victoria, said it is important for him that survivors focus when they think of denialism.
Moran, who is Metis, said that defines the denialism of IRS “as the action or actions that seek to reduce the truths shared by the survivors of the residential schools.”
“I think that one of the worst objectives of denialism is to discredit the truths of the survivors of residential schools,” he said.
Moran worked with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) gathering the testimony of survivors of thousands of people, and points out that the TRC was only one of several efforts to document the truth about residential schools, together with the Royal Commission of Aboriginal peoples.
“We have an excessive amount of truth about what happened within residential schools thanks to all these collective efforts,” he said.
“[Survivors] They have been remarkably consisting of everything they have said. And again and again … what we find on the ground, what we find in the files or what we find in other sources has verified what they have told us. “
The denial, he said, has existed since the first days of the residential school system; The children who fled and reported abuse were not believed or taken seriously, despite the fact that other students were often witnessed by other students, Moran said.
A crime?
Leah Gazan, deputy of the Winnipeg Center, presented a bill in Parliament last year that would have modified the Criminal Code to criminalize residential school negationalism.
Gazan’s bill refers to “convent, deny, minimize” facts “, a language identical to the law that prohibits the denial of the holocaust, but adds” justify the Indian residential school system in Canada or by misrepresenting facts related to it. “
“Indigenous peoples have the right to be protected from the incitement of hatred as the denial of the holocaust,” he said.
With an election that is expected soon, it is unlikely that the draft Gazan advance. She said that if she is re -elected, she will bring the bill to return to Parliament.
